Observation by Nick James: Needles and haystacks (the JWST upper st...

Uploaded by

Nick James

Observer

Nick James

Observed

2022 Jan 31 - 22:41

Uploaded

2022 Feb 02 - 23:22

Objects

Spacecraft

Equipment

ASI6200MM + Celestron HD11

Exposure

46x60s

Location

Chelmsford, UK

Target name

2021-130B

Title

Needles and haystacks (the JWST upper stage)

About this image

The Ariane upper stage that propelled JWST on its way to L2 is now 2.35 million km away and around mag 20. Unfortunately it is in a very busy field and also, at the time this image was obtained, happened to be in front of a faint reflection nebula (originally misclassified as a galaxy UGC 3543) so it was a real pain to find and measure. The inset shows a sigma-clipped stack offset at the expected rate and the faint dot in the middle is the stage. I think this is the furthest away human artefact that I have managed to image so far.

Files associated with this observation

2021130b_20220131_2241_ndj.jpg (1.5 MB)

Like this image

Mike Harlow, Dr Paul Leyland, Nick Quinn, Dominic Ford, Grant Privett, Robin Leadbeater, Ron Johnson, Denis Buczynski, Martin Lewis, Callum Potter, Robert Ian Henderson, Peter Carson

Comments

Dr Paul Leyland, 2022 Feb 03 - 09:27 UTC

Excellent! I'm hoping you achieved good astrometry for orbit determination.

Nick James, 2022 Feb 04 - 21:09 UTC

I did get some astrometry but it was of very poor quality due to the blended stars. I need to pick a time when the object is in a clearer area.

Nick James, 2022 Feb 04 - 23:02 UTC

I got some more astrometry tonight (Feb 4). In fact the measurements from Jan 31 fit quite well. The output from Findorb for my astrometry is here. The stage is now more than 2.5 million km away.

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